love (and chaos) times two

Month: January 2017

I’d like to believe that it’s common for women of child bearing age to fantasize about what life will be like when future imaginary tiny humans (that had been voluntarily conceived) enter the world. I like to believe that there are women out there that were like me; how adorable was I? Imagining myself sitting down with a glass of wine at the end of the night, blissfully gazing at a peaceful cutie patootie on a high tech monitor equipped with motion sensor and night vision after a day filled with diapering cute little tushies and listening to the sweet song of a cooing baby.

What. A. F**king. Idiot.

My whole life, as far back as I can remember, I’ve been an uptight, neurotic, controlling and, above all, anxious person. I’m at a place in my life where I can own these qualities. This is who I am. I love order; I am a notorious rule follower. Predictability is my best friend.

So the best possible thing I could do, naturally, is to erase a life full of routine and go and have a kid. Right? Like I said..

Idiot.

My husband William and I talked often about having kids for years before we got married. For a long time, our mutually agreed intention was to not wait very long after our wedding to grow our family. In theory, I loved this idea. That is, until we had our amazing wedding, I changed my last name and became an official Mrs…on the verge of being Mrs. Mom to some imaginary kid that was going to change everything. My ever so understanding husband supported me when I suggested we wait a while longer before taking the plunge into parenthood. And the conversation went back and forth for a while as I stalled because I just wasn’t ready for that chapter of my life; I wasn’t even sure who I was in the story yet.

After a while the idea of having little tiny humans with William’s baby blue eyes and my incredible sense of humor (I’m hysterical) was intriguing. I started seeing my friends have babies and I started remembering how much I enjoyed being around children, and how much I was looking forward to having some of our own.

(I’m pretty sure I don’t need to explain to you where babies come from so let me skip ahead a little.)

I justified making the decision in beginning the walk to being a parent by reassuring myself that in all of the reading I did… (because naturally, now that we decided kids were something we were actively trying for, I needed to enlist the help of Google to make it happen. I’m a planner, remember?) …every article and page I read had the same theme- GETTING PREGNANT IS HARD. I remember joking that I couldn’t figure out how 15/16 year old high school kids were timing this biological phenomenon so well that they were getting pregnant on accident. It seemed like stars and planets needed to align, mercury had to be in retrograde, a visit from the stork needed to happen and a sprinkle of fairy dust rounded everything out before there was even a 50% shot of winding up with a bun in the oven. This was a relieving reality; thankfully, because of biology, I had a little time to emotionally prepare for this.

Wrong. Shortly after we started trying, maybe even after that first real cycle of “activity,” a digital “yes” was staring at me on a pregnancy test on my bathroom counter at 5 in the morning. “Wait…what?”

I should have known. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of this going differently than I had planned. I sat with things for a while; the irony is that a pregnancy test will confirm your fate to be a new mother, but nothing is all that different for a while. You walk around as you once did, but now with a secret of sorts that will take time for others to be in on. I kept thinking things would feel real upon my first ultrasound (which doesn’t even happen until you’re 8 weeks pregnant…I was so offended that my doctor’s office wasn’t taking haste that the entire world just rocked beneath me.) I thought ok, I’ll see a bouncing bean on a black and white screen and try to make out appendages I’ll say I see (but I’ll be lying,) and then it will be tangible and solidified.

Wrong again.

Because do you know what a self proclaimed anal retentive, anxiety ridden, control freak gets when they try to have a baby?